Antarctica: UB research goes back to the white continent

With these objectives, the UB research joins once more the international effort to promote research in the Antarctica and to study the response of the natural ecosystems regarding the challenge of adapting new conditions of a planet under continuous environmental evolution.

Bluebio: new bioactive molecules in Antarctic marine ecosystems

Identifying compounds synthetized by marine organisms and assessing their potential pharmacological use is one of the main objectives of Bluebio, the new project led by the lecturer Conxita Àvila, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and IRBio. Other participants in the study are the researchers Paula de Castro, Carlos Angulo, Rafa Martín, Guillem Molina and Elisenda Ballesté (UB-IRBio), Marc Sentís (No Logo Project) and Yara Tiribiça (University of Cadiz). 

From the Juan Carlos I Antarctic research base, in Livingston Island -the second one in the South Shetland Islands archipelago-, the experts study variability, production and bioactivity of natural compounds produced by marine organisms (algae, sponges, cnidarian, molluscs, bryozoans, and tunicates) in Antarctic sea floors. From January to February, the team analysed the influence of some factors such as temperature, depredation or symbiont organisms when generating variability in the production of bioactive molecules in Antarctic ecosystems. As part of the campaign, some experts are expected to continue the research in the Gabriel de Castilla Antarctic base, in Deception Island, with more meridional latitude.

Bluebio presents new challenges in the field of Antarctic marine ecology “to give answers to problems of scientific and social interest on the improvement of the protection of biological and chemical diversity in marine ecosystems, and the management and environmental protection in Antarctic latitudes”, notes Conxita Àvila. The new research studies will spread the scientific horizon from previous projects led by Àvila (Ecoquim, Actiquim and Distantcom), which have been determining to broaden the knowledge on biological heritage, philogeography, and chemical ecology of communities of Antarctic marine invertebrates.

Flexseal: protecting southern population of Antarctic fur seal  

The Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) is a marine mammal that could have disappeared due the leather industry exploitation. This predator, which eats mainly krill and mesopelagic fish, is under process of recovery since mid-20th century, and its southern area of breeding are the Southern Shetland Islands, the ones closer to Antarctica. Nowadays, there are still many doubts on speciesʼ ability to adapt climate change, since their reproduction success could be related to the sea ice extension, under which the young krill are found.

Improving the knowledge on the trophic ecology and the use of the Antarctic fur seal habitat in the Southern Shetland Islands is the aim of Flexseal project, led by the lecturer Lluís Cardona (UB-IRBio). This project wants to study the importance of krill in the A. gazellaʼs diet, and the relation between these small crustacean -vital in the marine trophic chain- and the ice cycle during winter months. Participants in the Flexseal project are the biologists Manel Gazo, Massimiliano Drago and Diego Rita (UB-IRBio), and the vet Mariluz Parga (Submon).

During the southern summer, the research team will use the Gabriel de Castella Antarctic base as operation center, in Deception Island (Southern Shetland Islands). From February to March, experts will place satellite navigation emitters to follow the movement of these marine mammals during autumn and winter. They will conduct studies on biological samples (blood, excrements and whiskers) to analyse several biochemical markers and reconstruct the diet of these Antarctic seals over the year.  

According to lecturer Lluís Cardona, member of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the Research Group on Large Marine Vertebrates, “the project will help how this species changed their eating habits regarding krill, which was the basis of their diet twenty years ago, and how the reduction of marine ice is affecting them”.    

Another participant in this polar research scenario is the Ramon y Cajal UB researcher Marc Oliva, who took part in the Cronoantar project. Led by Jesús Ruiz Fernández (University of Oviedo), the project gathers experts from Spain, Portugal, France and the United Kingdom. Marc Oliva, coordinator of the research group Antarctic, Arctic and Alpine Environments (ANTALP) of the UB, joins this international team whose objective is the reconstruction of the deglaciation process in Livingston Island and King George Island, from the Last Maximum Glacial to now. Cronoantar results will enable assessing whether high rates of the retreat of glaciers over the last decades are recorded phenomena during the last millenniums or whether it is a trend responding to the effects of global change in the Antarctic continent.